Age of Foolishness

a Worst of Times companion, set after Age of Wisdom and Best of Times

Happy Birthday, Julie

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way –

-A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

He's asleep in their bed, and she takes the dark, too-early-morning hours to brush her fingers softly over his forehead, the slope of his nose, his cheekbones. She skims the jut of his chin, traces the edge of his jaw - and then moves to his neck.

The ligature marks still stain his skin.

She barely touches it, lets herself slowly grow accustomed to the nature of its smooth ridges, its even features. It's a part of him, but it will fade eventually. It has, actually, already begun to fade.

Kate slides closer and presses her lips to the tail edge of the mark, gasps when his hand tangles in her hair.

"Sorry," she murmurs against his skin. "Go back to sleep."

His chest vibrates with a hum, but not words, and he turns over nearly on top of her. Kate huffs and draws a hand to his bare shoulder, turns to look at his face now on her pillow. He's blinking slowly, licks his bottom lip before he focuses on her.

"What're you doin'?"

"Nothing," she says softly, moving her fingers to the hair on his neck. "Woke too early."

He sucks in a long, stuttering breath and closes his eyes again, drops right back into sleep.

Kate brushes her thumb across his neck, the rope burn catching every whorl of her fingerprint. She tilts her head and kisses his temple, closes her eyes and tries to follow him down.

He wakes and has to pee, brutal and sharp, struggles out of bed for the bathroom with his brain sloshing around in his head. He goes, washes his hands, and happens to look up at himself in the mirror at just that moment.

The nightlight washes his skin in pale blue, the round scars on his chest a sickly grey in the shadows. He lifts his fingers to the place where the taser's prongs bit into his skin, the scars puckered and angry because of the electrodes. Jerry had modified the thing, more than fifty thousand volts, black market, and it had ripped through him like fire.

He has memories he doesn't want, fractured images of agony, and every time he almost begins to forget, he has these marks on his chest to remind him. The faint and dark impression of rope around his neck is nothing - he doesn't even recall Tyson strangling him. But these. . .

His fingers ache suddenly, throbbing, and he lifts his hands to look at them in the darkness. His left index finger is still slightly crooked, but on the whole, he's remarkably healed.

A warmth at his back makes him jump, but then her arms are around him, her face pressed to his shoulder blade, her moist breath against his skin. His shoulders droop and his hands come up to hers, their fingers lacing together.

"Kate," he murmurs.

Instead of answering him, her palms skate up his chest and hover over those scars, her fingers rubbing, rhythmic and haunting.

"When I saw you on the floor of your study," she says softly; he feels her breath hitch but he won't stop her. "I was afraid it would never be okay again. How do you come back from that?"

He blinks in the darkness of his bathroom, their bathroom; he can't even see her, just the length of her arms around him, and he can feel the touch of her fingers, soothing, the heat of her at his back, protective.

"I don't know," he says finally, his voice raw. "I don't know how."

She shakes her head against him, twists around to crowd between him and the sink, her body strong against his chest. Her mouth opens over first one scar and then the other, the touch of her tongue cool relief.

"You have though," she murmurs. "You have. Even when I was falling apart on you-"

"You never-"

"I did. But not you. So when it's your turn, Castle, I'm here. If you need to-"

He crushes her in an embrace, his arms squeezing so tightly that he can feel the rigidity of her muscles as she resists being completely destroyed by the fierce and overwhelming need he has to subsume Kate Beckett into himself.

His mouth opens at her jaw, his teeth scraping hard, and then she squeezes his hips, her nails digging into his skin until it breaks through. The bright points of her fingers act like blades to pierce the darkness, let in a little light.

Castle pulls back, panting, seeing her there in the cold light, her eyes relentless on his. He bends his knees to bring himself level with her and gentles his embrace, presses his cheek to hers and feels her breathing.

Soft, slow, soothing.

"Tell me what happened with Tyson," she says quietly. "Get the story out, Castle."

He doesn't want to. Doesn't want it in his head to begin with and he definitely doesn't want to paint those images any clearer for her either.

"No," he says finally, swallowing hard. "I just want to go to bed."

He turns in her arms to head back to their room, but he catches her fingers with his and draws her after him. When he slides between the sheets, she's right at his back, scooting him over instead of walking around to her side. So he moves, feels her arms draw around him, her body pressed to his, and it makes him feel - powerful, cherished.

"Sleep then, Castle." She presses a kiss to his neck and squeezes his shoulders a little, her fingers drifting to those scars, brushing over them.

"You're like my superman cape," he murmurs, smiling into his pillow. He feels her laugh, the undulation of her body against his back, and he falls onto his stomach to sleep.

She stays right there, and it feels good having her all over him.

Kate wakes before he does, has to peel her sweaty skin off of his, laughing softly as she smooths the spiky ends of his hair. She kisses his cheek and moves around the bed to twist closed the wooden slats of the blinds, shutting out the morning sun.

She trails her fingers over his calf as she moves back to the bathroom, starts the shower. She's not sure how much sleep he got last night, but she wants to wash her hair, get clean, and then crawl back into bed with him.

One year anniversary today and she really wishes he'd talk about it. But he's refused every time.

One year since Jerry Tyson slipped into Castle's apartment and tasered him, tied him up, tortured him just for the hell of it. The ligature marks on Castle's neck means Tyson choked him, but it was his hands-

His hands which are fine. Fine now. Better than fine - exquisite and deft and beautiful.

And usually all over her.

She brushes her teeth after she washes her hands, drops her electric toothbrush in the cradle of the charger as it flashes at her. She steps into the shower and turns it on, lets the instant of cold water make her gasp, shivering, before it heats up and reddens her skin.

She closes her eyes on the persistent mental image of Castle's mangled fingers tied behind his back, turns around to soak everything, let the heaviness of the water in her hair drag her down, wash it all out, gone.

When she comes back to the bedroom, twisting her hair up on top of her head and dragging a rubber band over it to keep it there, Castle is dead to the world.

She climbs into bed in just a t-shirt, no underwear in case he wants to have a little fun this morning. He's on his stomach, face turned away from her, and she gets a knee under his pillow and manages to slide her leg under him so that his head is in her lap.

Mm, feels good.

Just a pillow separates them and she draws her other knee up to cradle his body, leaning back against the headboard and wriggling a little to get settled. She strokes her fingers over his chin, his temple, into his hair, over and over until her eyes grow heavy.

He's a sound sleeper; he could be out for another couple hours and she gets to touch him without worrying about what he thinks of her for it. No, she's not falling apart. And no, she's not looking to get him worked up. She's just so grateful to have him, and that, like she said to him in the middle of the night, he's still so. . .him.

Irrepressibly Castle.

He wakes slowly, feels his head wrapped in damp wool, or heat, something that-

Oh, it's Kate Beckett.

He grunts on a laugh that can't escape his chest, tightens his arms around her waist. She feels good. She smells good too. Sharply clean, slightly musky. Actually, he can smell-

"Kate Beckett, you're not wearing any underwear," he murmurs on a grin, lifting his head from his pillow to find that Kate's got him cradled in her lap. His fingers dance at her back, slipping lower, stroking around her flanks, and she gasps, laughing at him.

"I was waiting on you to wake up," she hums.

He grins back and lifts his head to kiss her sternum, high as he can reach, and then drops his head back into his pillow. "Let me still wake up a minute."

"Take your time." She laughs again and her fingers run through his hair. "I got all day."

"Oh, you do?"

"I told you last night. I have today off."

"Oh, that's right. You wanna spend all day in bed?"

"Well. Actually, there's something outside the bed I want to do."

"I told you my back can't take the kitchen floor again-"

He feels her ripple of laughter against his head and chest, grins to himself at how easily he can make her laugh. He half turns on his side and glances up at her, that beautiful smiling face beaming down at him. Her fingers trace his cheek and move up to his eyebrow, brushing lightly.

"What do you want to do, Kate." Not even a question, just his love in words, the sight before him.

She leans over him and softly kisses his mouth. "After I do you?"

He grins into her kiss and threads a hand through her hair. "Mm, you do me and then I do you, and then after that, what do you want to do?"

"I want to go to Battery Park."

A walk in Battery Park shouldn't garner this level of excitement from her, that crazy smile and the way she's curled up around him, but he's too dazed by it to figure out what's really going on.

He strokes the edge of her ear and smiles back. "Okay, we'll go to Battery Park."